Robert Devine

Although I’m probably best known for light hearted whodunits, such as the Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries, I do write darker material; the Feyer & Drake mysteries under my real name, for example.

Robert Devine is a different proposition. Under this pen name I turn out seriously dark and often violent psychological thrillers, with master hypnotist, Allan Cain as the central character.

Many years ago I took a short course in hypnotherapy. I did so to combat increasing arthritis. As an analgesic, hypnotism has no equal, and it has fewer side-effects than drugs. Note the word ‘fewer’ not ‘none’. There are side effects and under the wrong circumstances, they could be irritating, but they are mostly beneficial. I practised for a short time, but I lacked the necessary counselling skills, and soon gave it up. I’m a writer, a novelist, not a mender of people.

The entire subject became an area of fascination for me, and in the mid-1990s, I turned out a five hour TV drama for a production company based in Devon. We never got a commission and at the turn of the millennium I transcribed it as a novel entitled, The Handshaker. It was published by Crooked Cat Books in 2012, and it flopped. Some years later, I took the rights back and retitled it Dominus, and self-published it. Once again, it flopped.

It was a mystery. Reviews, although few in number, raved about it. Since the reprint, in common with its sequels, The Power and Ryman, it has taken no reviews, and sold almost no copies, and I long ago gave up on it.

And then, in May and June of 2021, something strange happened. Without any prompting, all three books began to take page reads in Kindle Unlimited. In less than a month, they had garnered over 1000 page reads, all of them exclusively in the United States. Towards the end of June, my wife and I took a week’s holiday on the coast and while we were there, I re-read (and made occasional corrections to) all three.

Although I say this myself, they are detailed and structured, and generally well-written. I have now republished them (Kindle only) and all three are posted in Kindle Unlimited, which means that members of Amazon Prime can read them free as part of their allowance.

But be advised, they are far stronger than the Feyer & Drake series, graphic and not for the faint-hearted.

You can learn more about the three individual titles HERE